Reformation Tours is a ministry of the RPCS. At Reformation Tours we believe it’s important to not only keep alive the major events of Scotland’s Reformation and the Covenanters but also the individual stories of the ordinary people who suffered for their faith in this land in the 16th and 17th Centuries.
We know it’s vital to keep their stories alive, and where better to learn it but in the places they lived and worked. We travel to many small towns and villages to visit these places and to tell our clients about people like James Gavin of Douglas.
James was a tailor by trade and had his home on the main street of the town. He was also a staunch Covenanter and a wanted man.
He would often seek refuge in a nearby cave when the Government troops were in the vicinity. One time however the barking of his little dog alerted the passing soldiers, and he was arrested. Claverhouse, the persecutor of the Covenanters, ordered his ears to be sliced off, an act that was carried out with Gavin’s own shears which the tailor carried with him. He was then transported to Barbados. He survived, and after the persecution was able to return to Douglas where he rebuilt his house in 1695 and set the stone lintel above the door with his and his wife’s initials and the date 1695 carved onto it. It also has carved representations of the tailor’s shears and smoothing iron. The photograph shows the lintel now set into the cairn and also when it was in its original position above the front door of his cottage, which was demolished in 1968.
From the lives of Scotland’s great Reformers to the shepherds, farmers, and tailors, let us take you around Scotland and tell you their stories. Check out our website for more details.
